Eva Marie on training with Kendrick, Total Divas, NXT, More

Eva Marie recently spoke with Crave Online to promote WWE SummerSlam. The full interview can be found at this link. Below are highlights:

Did Brian Kendrick have you study any particular film or style?

Absolutely! He didn’t specifically tell me to stay with any certain style but he had me watch film from Japanese wrestling to old school matches with WWE. I watched a lot of super crazy Tajiri matches, which were insane to me because of that style. It’s so fast doing moonsault after moonsault after moonsault was pretty impressive. I just pick and choose from different matches and different eras. Things are always changing but a lot of things are the same just with different little flavors.

Your NXT entrance attire had the Internet buzzing. What was the inspiration for the robe and the rest of your attire? How did you decide on that look?

Eva Marie: That was collaboration between Brian [Kendrick] and myself. His wife actually made my robe for me. I love the old school wrestling. That’s what I watched with my brothers so I wanted to bring back the over the top pageantry, the glam, and no Diva on the roster has an entrance like that so I wanted to be different and bring something new into the generation that I’m in right now.

This [Total Divas] season you’ve had some animosity come your way. Why so many critics?

To be honest, I don’t know the root of the animosity. I’m really just trying to train and get better at my job so I can get on those girls level and be able to entertain and put on matches that everybody is happy about. That’s where I’m coming from. The funny thing is, I’m in California and in Orlando. I’ve been training at the WWE Performance Center as well. It’s just the fact that the times I’m not in Orlando training at the Performance Center, I’m getting in the ring with Brian Kendrick. I’m doing the best that I possibly can with both situations. I’m working on the NXT live events and I go out to Orlando two weeks out of each month so that I can train.

What’s it like working in front of those NXT crowds?

For me it’s awesome! I just recently had my fifth singles match so it’s pretty incredible because that crowd is so close not only to the ring but it’s just such an intimate crowd so you can really feed off of however they feel or whatever they take to in the match and it’s a really big interaction between entertainer and fan, which is awesome.

Lastly, what do you ultimately want to get out of all of this?

I want to be able to bring the WWE Universe with me wherever I go and with whatever I am doing. I want to bring them on this journey just like how they’ve been following me on the last six months through me training and progressing in the ring and and now it’s walk with me to my first match. That was another little step and I want to continue to do that and bring them with me throughout everything, which is a lot of different things and different avenues and really integrate WWE with mainstream as well as be a positive role model and let them know that if you dream something you can definitely achieve it as long as you’re willing to put in the hard work and don’t let other people get in your way.